Understand Different Types of Meditation
Although there are literally countless forms of meditation, they basically fall into just four or five different categories. There are no longer any religious beliefs, teachings, or practices that have to be associated with meditation. Nowadays, as long as it is simple, comfortable, and achievable then there are no specific details to follow. Variations include lying down, standing, walking, as well as the traditional meditation posture of sitting in a crossed-legged position on the ground with an awareness of your body’s position. The key is to practice every day, breathe, and connect with yourself.
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Steps
Learning the Types of Meditation
- Practice concentration meditation. Concentration meditation is the foundation of all the other types of meditation. Meditation works best when you strengthen your concentration to the point of cutting out all distractions, or intense focus on nothingness. Reaching this level allows your mind to be calm and to move beyond your sense of self. Once attained, you can use it for wellness and a positive outlook.
- One of the methods to practice this type of mediation is to concentrate on a single object like an image, sound, or even your own breath. By consistently returning to focus on the object, the mind develops the capacity to remain calm.
- Different types of popular concentration meditations are transcendental, zen, om, shine or Samadhi, and chakra meditation.
- Train with reflective meditation. Reflective meditation, or analytical meditation, stimulates the power of dramatic change by providing you with great conviction and strength to reorder your life ways. This type of meditation requires “disciplined thinking.” In this case, a question, theme, or topic is chosen to contemplate for analysis. It is okay to let your mind wander for a short time, but it is vital that you bring your thought back to the reflection to make your mind stronger.
- It would be a good idea to master concentration meditation first since this type requires a higher degree of concentration and contemplation.
- Typical questions you can focus on are: “Who am I?” “What is the true purpose of my life?” “What is my role in the universe?” or “How can I help remove the suffering of others?”
- Learn mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness mediation is a combination of concentration and open awareness. It emphasizes the cultivation of highly receptive attention toward any object or action within your sphere of influence. It is simply being “mindful,” or “paying attention” to your surroundings. Practitioners claim the benefits provide pain relief and helps support sufferers of anxiety and depression.
- This is the most popular meditation type in the Western Hemisphere.
- You practice this meditation type by concentrating on an object such as breath, thoughts, feelings, or sounds but not as narrow as in concentration meditation. Instead, there is allowance for simultaneous awareness of other phenomena in your surroundings.
- This meditation practice can be adapted to daily routines such as eating, walking, driving, or performing household chores. This adaptation removes all rigorous contemplative training.
- Mindful meditation is often associated with the Theravada Buddhist practice of vipassana, or “insight meditation,” but other techniques such as deep-breathing, body scan, visualization, mindful breathing, sitting meditation, and walking meditation now exist.
- Try heart-centered meditation. Heart-centered meditation, or heat chakra meditation, is performed to remove negative energy and release your fears and sadness. As your heart heals, your mind will embrace loving kindness and compassion, and encourage you to help heal the hearts of others.
- Find a quiet place, set your posture, and focus on your heart while you calmly and slowly inhale and exhale. Concentrate on connecting your heart to the heart of another person you feel compassion for.
- Try this type of meditation when grieving or when suffering from great personal loss. This will put your mind at ease and heal your heart.
- Discover guided meditation. Guided, or sometimes called creative or visualization, meditation focuses on cultivating and strengthening various qualities of your mind. Qualities such as appreciation, joy, compassion, patience, empathy, love, gratitude, compassion, humility, fearlessness, and tenderness can be the areas of your concentration.
- Beginners start with a teacher who provide auditory guidance that encourages the elicitation of certain images, affirmations, states (such as peacefulness), or desired experiences.
- This type of meditation is popular in western culture as a way to promote health, well-being, and as a visualization of a successful outcome to a surgery or competition.
Understanding Meditation Breathing Techniques
- Practice pranayama breathing technique. This breathing technique is considered to be an exact science that focuses on the regulation of prana (breathe) by stopping inhalation and exhalation. In a connected way, controlling your inhales and exhales enables you to better control your subtle prana, which in turn, allows you to control your mind.
- Controlling your mind through Pranayama removes impurities from your body. To achieve this level you have to practice daily in a quiet location free from external distractions.
- Train with diaphragmatic breathing. With diaphragmatic breathing, you will want continuously inhale and exhale without pause. This is the opposite of the Pranayama breathing technique.
- The diaphragm is the efficient muscle used in breathing. By strengthening the diaphragm through this breathing technique, you will decrease the rate of breathing, oxygen demand, and the exertion of less energy to breathe bringing stillness to your body.
- Since breathing is interconnected to the nervous system as well as the mind, practice diaphragmatic breathing in the early morning and just prior to sunset for maximum effect.
- Engage in mindful breathing. The primary goal of mindful breathing is to practice focusing on your own breathing. You must focus on every single inhalation and every single exhalation. This is known as mindfulness-of-breathing. In doing so, you will sharpen your concentration.
- If you have trouble starting out, try counting your breaths to get your mind in the right place.
- When you begin, start by gently moving your attention towards the process of breathing. Choose to concentrate on each breath as it happens or on the rise and fall of your chest or abdomen. The point is to understand what it is truly like to breathe without altering the natural process.
- When finished, try to stay connected to the present moment and expand your awareness to the environment around you. Contemplate your experience and remember how you feel at this very moment.
- Connect through chakra breathing technique. Chakra breathing is designed to assist and improve the flow of energy throughout your body. This is possible because there are seven chakras located within the body. By concentrating on each of the chakras, you will be able to move energy throughout your body by connecting the chakra with your breath. This will create harmony, balance, and positive energy flow, keeping your body healthy both physically and emotionally.
- The seven chakra are: root chakra on the base of spine; sacral chakra situated in the lower abdomen; solar plexus chakra situated in the solar plexus; heart chakra located at the center of the chest; throat chakra in the throat; third eye chakra located at the center of the forehead; and the crown chakra at the top of the head.
Identifying the Benefits of Meditation
- Gain enlightenment. Meditation is a practice meant to discover the reality of the mind as it is and to help the world to remove negativity. It is possible to replace negativity with positive thoughts and actions, and to achieve physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual change with all those you come into contact with.
- Meditation also makes you realize how important the construction of your body is and what goes in and out of it. As a result, people who practice meditation tend to eat healthier. They recognize the foods they are putting into their body and how it can either maintain or disrupt balance.
- Another product from meditation is self-awareness. Not only do you recognize what you put into your body but also who you are. Meditation allows you to clear your mind of the day’s busy activities, anger, stress, and anxiety, making you more comfortable with yourself.
- Reduce stress. Meditation allows you take control over your body, especially your own nervous system and emotions. In a world full of agitation, meditation calms the mind and brings inner peace.
- Certain types of meditation specifically associate with reducing stress. New studies have shown that meditation can help people deal with the symptoms of social anxiety disorders.
- Meditation stimulates brain signaling in the left side of the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with happy emotions. While, at the same time, decreases activity in the right side where negative emotions originate. This also improves your overall well-being.
- Improve concentration. Since concentration is the foundation of meditation, it only makes sense that you will drastically improve this if you practice daily. People have claimed that not only do they have better focus and energy but they also multitask better because of the improvement in concentration.
- Recent studies suggest that it takes less than one month of practicing meditation to significant improvement in focus and memory. Since a vital part of meditation is the strong focus on an object or idea, it makes sense that concentration improves significantly.
